Chapter 5: The Set-Up
Falchion sat down in front of the large tree next to his small shack in the wooded clearing. He leaned back, allowing his head to settle against the padding that he often practiced his unarmed strikes on. He looked down at his hand, which was now wrapped in a bandage and ice after he missed his pad and struck the tree harder than he would've liked. Another training session down the drain because he couldn't focus or keep his thoughts on anything other than the day a few weeks ago he spent in the company of Fluttershy. What had begun as a simple desire to ensure she was okay was quickly becoming a problem for someone like him, he was a loner now, he didn't have time for feelings.
He closed his eyes and delved deeply into his thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, this would be the day that he finally figured out exactly what it was about that day that caught him off so much. If he could just figure it out maybe images of her final act that day wouldn't flash into his mind, or bring warmth to his cheeks. All he had to do was add up the moments and he'd find an answer, he hoped.
He had stayed there, sitting on the flat top of the fence while Fluttershy... He immediately hit himself in the head, trying to shake the name free, she was Miss Shy, that was how he kept her at arm's length. Miss Shy had gone inside and after a few minutes that retrospectively took far longer in his head than he'd like to admit he remembered she came out wearing a thick pale yellow sweater clearly designed for the colder weather. A funny juxtaposition to the tee and padded vest he'd worn that day, he thought back amused at his cold resistance.
He remembered she was trailed by three young girls who were babbling excitedly about all the treats they had been promised in exchange for not talking to their older sisters about him. He assumed that it was Flutter- Miss Shy's work and appreciated her understanding of his desire for secrecy. He paused for a second on the thought and wondered if maybe it was also to her benefit that their, whatever it was, remained a secret. What he had expected would be a leisurely walk into town was anything but, if they weren't aggressively changing direction to either keep up with the children or to avoid someone Miss Fluttershy had seen, he was being needlessly harassed by a young girl in fashionable clothes about his kitana or his own clothing.
His reflection had quickly turned into quiet meditation as his mind skipped ahead to him standing outside of a brightly coloured confectionary, as he had felt uncomfortable even bringing his sheathed blade into the shop. He remembered looking around and seeing a rack of magazines in front of the doors to the newsshop next door. He'd walked over to see if anything might be worth his time and got a shock. There was a shoddy second rate paper there advertising new information about the 'Mysterious Swordsman of Ponyville' with subtitles like 'out of control' and claiming to have pictures of a woman who'd been maimed by this man. He looked inside and smirked at the woman who'd clearly inflicted the jagged cuts to herself, what people would do to get attention.
He walked into the store and left some money on the counter, ignoring the awkward stares of the store owner who's eyes hadn't come off his sheath since he walked into the store. He remembered muttering something to the shop owner but as he tried to remember what it was his memory skipped ahead to him meeting a friend of Fluttershy's. A pink haired young woman who was also dressed in garish shades of the same colour she and Fluttershy were thankful to have on their heads. He remembered not trusting her much until Fluttershy had insisted she was trustworthy, then something about the way she'd promised and her incredibly awkward diction made her impossible to dislike.
He skipped ahead again in his own memories, he honestly wasn't sure if it was a matter of terrible memory or if instead he had achieved a moment of blissful meditation. If he had indeed found his center it would've been the first time since that day. He was now walking alongside Miss Shy... He was now walking alongside Fluttershy as the skies cleared and she led him back across town towards her home, the brief ice shower had actually brought a chill to him, something that was rare, even underdressed in cold weather.
He'd showed her the paper he had purchased while they were walking to her home. He remembered her reaction perfectly.
"You would never do this." She spoke with a quiet tone with more than a pinch of disgust.
"Quite right I wouldn't." He replied, his hand instinctively gripping her shoulder to put her at ease.
Then he realised he'd found that moment he had been waiting for, the one that kept distracting him. In reality it was more than one, it had started immediately after that very brief amount of speech between the two of them. Fluttershy's passiveness and his complete disassociation with people had made the time alone between the two of them quiet until...
"Have you ever had t-to... uh... if you want to tell me... with the s-sword?" Fluttershy's voice cracked repeatedly as she desperately tried to squeak out of most awkward question she'd ever had the displeasure of asking.
When Falchion turned to her and stopped, she cowered, but stopped as well. His mind told him to run, go back to the shadows where no one could judge him or assume the worst. Then his mouth didn't listen.
"Never. My grandfather told me once that weapons like swords had the most powerful wielders because having to feel what you were harming beneath your hands gave it gravitas. So while I'm proficient, I've never harmed a soul with it other than myself."
Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he was looking across the clearing at the woods. He'd had a huge moment of clarity. After that admission she'd held his hand, and dragged him across the town to her home. Then she stopped him on her doorstep and just before she ducked into her home, she'd thanked him once again for all the help he'd given her, then ordered him to stop calling her miss. He remembered at that moment his heart was pumping beyond the aid of internal discipline. Then... then...
He touched his hand to his lips.
"Fluttershy..." He whispered into the frigid winter wind, taking a moment to pull the hood of his cloak up over his head.
In anger he quickly sprung to his feet and swung a wild kick at the tree, and for the second time that day he completely missed the padding he had wrapped around it. His leg smashed into the tree with a loud knock and he immediately recoiled back from the tree, falling down and clutching his leg.
"Fuck!" He shouted out the first curse that had sprung to mind once the pain knocked him down.
Falchion was then stunned back to attention by a low female voice parting the trees, followed into his clearing by a dark skinned woman wearing a thick cloak of her own.
"It is not wise to judge what you do not see, but what rings out cursed sounds like love to me." Came the rhyming deep voice of Zecora.
Falchion slowly got to his feet, gingerly placing pressure on his right leg until he was sure it would hold weight. He began busily unwrapping his hand and instead wrapping his leg, he did his best to ignore the second person now there but instead of leaving, Zecora welcomed herself, lowering her hood and sitting on a stump that was remaining near his shack and fire pit. Falchion gave her an irritated deadpan stare when he realised she wasn't going to leave.
"I honestly thought I had been rid of you." He told her, no disguise in his voice, his low, youthful tone ringing out with honesty.
"So long as we share this shadowed wood, we will be friends as well we should. Though from your family you did run, I will treat you as my son. When you did not come for weekly tea, I thought it wise that I proceed." Zecora continued to rattle off her rhyming lines, enjoying Falchion's face go from irritation to amusement. While she proceeded to set her kettle above his crackling fire.
"Okay Zecora. I get it. Just because I left home doesn't mean I don't have one." Falchion spoke with the tone of an irritated teenager.
The next few minutes passed in silence while Zecora fiddled with her various tea paraphinalia. Were he being honest he didn't really like tea, but it was at least something he could enjoy with the closest thing he had to a friend. He noticed the kettle boiling over while Zecora seemed more than happy just blissfully ignoring it. Had he not spent so much time with her he'd think she wasn't paying attention.
"Okay, Zecora, the kettle is boiling and you aren't getting it. What's the game this time?" Falchion once again returned to his deadpan stare.
Zecora just smiled, "It seems that my ploy you've spied, let's just say it's a nice surprise." She spoke before standing and walking away from the fire and into the woods leaving Falchion dumbstruck.
"Leave it to you Zecora, come for tea. Don't stay and drink it." Falchion begrudgingly poured himself a cup, enjoying the warmth coming from the tea through the glass.
Falchion lifted the glass up to take a sip from it and heard a snap from the forest. He slowly lowered the mug down before he heard another snap, louder this time and certainly closer. He put the mug down slowly and walked into his shack to retrieve his sword before listening to see if he would hear any more snaps. Given a second, he certainly did hear another on its way to him.
He quickly slid amongst the trees waiting and holding to see if there would be any sign of an intruder. He noticed that for winter, even amongst the evergreens, the brush seemed awkwardly thick, almost unnaturally so. He leaned against a tree and felt the scuffles of feet through the forest floor coming towards him, then a snap, then a voice.
"Oh, I'm sorry... Why do I keep breaking branches off the trees? I take two steps off the path to help an injured squirrel and I wind up lost..." Came a meek voice from between the trees.
With one swift move Falchion slid the kitana out of it's holster with a satisfying grinding sound and swung around the tree holding it in the path of the person marching through the woods. He stopped the blade just mere centimetres from where it was set to strike and was shocked by this stunned squeak coming from the frozen intruder. Immediately followed by a soft crying that made him desperately drop his kitana.
As his kitana clattered to the ground he took a step back in silence as a few tears began to stream down her terrified face. On one hand he was thinking that he should pull her close and beg her to forgive him for nearly gashing her, the logical side of his brain screamed run at him as if running was the only possible solution to this. He quickly turned and found that he was suddenly trying to run through thick brush with concrete for legs. As if being dragged against his will he found himself once again face-to-face with her.
He reached a hand out to touch her and felt depressed when she recoiled in tears. "Fluttershy..."
Falchion found himself in an comfortable reversal when Fluttershy, wiping the tears and covering her face with the sleeves of her heavy sweater, was slowly backing away from him. What struck him the most was not the look of fear he saw, it was the betrayal that he could feel behind it. He had told her he had never hurt anyone with his kitana just a few weeks ago and then just now nearly took her apart with it. Even he would admit he'd never come that close to harming anyone before.
She turned to run and he said the only thing he could. "Please, don't go."
The effect was instantaneous, Fluttershy's posture immediately changed to one of extreme discomfort. She slowly wheeled to see him and in a show of extreme bravery slowly pulled her arms down letting him see her tear stained face. He bent down and slowly picked up his kitana before gingerly lifting it in front of her.
"No blood. There never will be, I swear." He spoke softly, a whisper amongst the trees carried by the wind as far as it needed to be. Why he needed to promise her he still wasn't quite sure.
Falchion quickly sheathed his sword, watching Fluttershy tremble until it was away. Then he slowly reached towards her until his hand was under her chin. She didn't move, or retreat, in fact touching her actually seemed to calm her, her breathing was still fast but it was a much more reasonable pace. There was no risk of another unconscious adventure the way she was now.
He leaned in towards her, at that moment he wanted nothing more than to be close to her and comfort her even though he knew only what she had told him about herself on that day a few weeks ago. Then another scattered thought. She had said we hadn't she? When they first truly spoke, and for a brief second he'd risked enjoying her company. "We're part of the process." she'd said to him, he wanted that we. For a moment at least the two of them together could be that we.
She let him grab her lips with his, the rough, dry skin of a man braving nature's elements clashing with the unnatural softness of one who took care of herself as much as she did others. What should've been a brief moment became parting lips, deep apology and for the two of them, just once, their preferred silence was all that was needed to communicate. Their tongues tied for just a tantalizing brief moment and as they parted the smile she wore made one grow on him as well.
Falchion didn't want her go so soon and then he realised what Zecora had known but hadn't told him.
"Tea?" He asked, offering her an arm to lead her back to his camp.
She flushed and her quiet voice came back for a second. "I-I'd l-love to."
Minutes later, Fluttershy sat on this lone stump near where a fire was crackling delicately and she was just, watching. She found herself unable to do much but stare as a now decloaked Falchion was striking at padding he had attached to a nearby tree, she watched as he moved with a kind of fragile and disciplined grace which seemed strangely off for a wildman living in a shack in the middle of a notoriously dangerous woodland area. Something about the nearby fire, the warm tea in her hand and the repeated thuds of him striking the tree put her at peace.
When he paused and took a moment to walk over and join her near the fire, she took a look up at him and thought of how exactly to start prying into his life. He went from a knight in shining armor in her mind to a callous set of lips she desperately wanted to never be seperated from. She couldn't change the fact that right now, she knew next to nothing about him, and she couldn't keep getting close to him without knowing something.
"Falchion..." She asked for his attention cautiously. He didn't respond but just nodded his attention so she continued.
"... I was going to ask you something, about your past, if that's okay with you?" She spoke calmly, doing her best to not betray exactly how nervous she was.
His expression remained unchanged and Fluttershy began to pout and hide herself amongst her hood and hands. He didn't know much about her, other than the little she'd talked about her family that day a few weeks before. She hoped he wouldn't be offended that she asked, all she really wanted to do was understand him. The more thoughts momentarily blinked through her train of thought the closer and closer she came to tears. That was before he sat down on the ground near the fire and looked up at her.
"I'm very protective of my past, it's the only thing I truly own." He spoke slowly, precisely picking the words out of his mind. She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued, cutting her off.
"I'll give you three questions, and if you ask a question I'm not willing to answer..." He let the challenge hang in the air and noticed Fluttershy nodding along.
"... Then those posters, in town, for the Winter Moon Celebration. I'll take you." He offered it out as a shot in the dark, if she was willing to kiss him and join him for tea, why wouldn't she let him take her.
Fluttershy immediately flushed to his proposal. She honestly had nothing to lose because even if she didn't win the bet, she had a chance right now to learn things about him she'd almost never have a chance to learn otherwise. The best part of all was that she didn't need to be as nervous or shy this time, he gave her the carte blanche, and while not the competitive type. She truly wanted to win.
"Um... okay... I accept." Fluttershy smiled at Falchion immediately after accepting, putting him uncomfortably on edge. She took a sip of tea then began to speak.
"I'm sure this is a little obvious, b-but where did you learn to fight?" Fluttershy tiptoed gently with the first question, even if he was giving her an open book she still believed there was some kind of limit to how rude she could be.
Falchion looked up at her with a smirk. It was pretty clear she'd have to ask him about that at some point, why not now? He lay back on the ground and stared up at the sky.
"Well, my grandfather and my mother taught me for a long time. I've been learning ever since I was five. My father was a business type, but my grandfather was from Nippony, as was my mother. Apparently my grandfather had taught children martial arts and swordsmanship ever since he was my age. I was just born into the family traditions I guess. When my father came back to San Franciscolt for business, Mother and I came with him, I was just seven then. As I grew older I wanted to know more and more about it and my mother would share stories of Grandfather's trails on way to becoming a sword master. Apart from my grandfather, Mother taught me as dilligently as she could in the meantime, she had become a school teacher as well, it was nice to see her find her true calling. In fact, she gave me the sword that I now use, it was given to her by my Great Grandfather.
Then when I was twelve, my grandfather passed away and Mother never made it home to see him before he left us. After that she didn't teach me anymore, she told me to just focus on my studies and to try to be like Father. She never knew how often I would sneak away and practice in secret just imagining my grandfather teaching me like he used to, I think deep down she knew how badly I wanted to be like him." Falchion looked up at Fluttershy and noticed tears already forming in her eyes, he nervously added one last line.
"It took a long time, but I've made peace with those memories."
Fluttershy had taken to staring into her cup now, almost like she was now trying to avoid the challenge she'd gotten herself into. At the same time, the opposite was true, there was more she wanted and needed to know about him, especially now.
"Um... S-San Francisco-colt is all the w-way across the country, h-how did you get h-here?" Unlike her first question which had been asked cautiously, her second one was a shuddered, stuttering mess and she continued to stare into her cup, secretly wishing it might swallow her whole.
Falchion let out a long and exasperated sigh.
"...Um, if you want to tell me..." Fluttershy added hastily after Falchion's sigh. If he'd heard her, he didn't give any sign of it.
"That one is a little easier to answer, depending on your definition of easier. My father decided when I was older that regardless of Mother's support of my swordsmanship and Martial Arts, I needed to have the skills necessary to take over his business. He decided that the way to solve this problem was to send me to finishing school when I was sixteen. When he told me that I'd have to give up swordsmanship to join the business when I was finished I refused to go, so he registered me in the dormitories...
... In a school in Manehattan.
When I arrived there, I told the dean outright I had no intention of staying and he encouraged me to stick it out and see where it brought me. After a couple of semesters I ultimately decided it wasn't for me, but when my father heard I intended to come home he told me that the first step I took inside his home without my diploma would be my last in his family. He insulted me like no man ever had before, so I just took mother's sword and ran.
I used the money I'd saved and stopped whenever I could and then I found Everfree and remembered stories of my grandfather who'd lived in the woods for years to attain discipline. I started living out here, and I never went back. Even though I now understand that Father was just worried I was ruining my future, and deep down I've forgiven him, I've never told him that." Falchion explained, the memories put him somewhere between tears and anger but either way he brushed the emotions aside.
Fluttershy gave him a concerned look, and then smiled. She wasn't entirely sure she believed him when he tried to play the sad stories off positively but she at least felt closer to him now than she did before. She noticed a frown on his face and clambered down from the tree stump so she could be next to him.
"I don't think..." She paused for a second, wrapping her arm around his. "... I want to play anymore."
Falchion looked down at her hoping to get some kind of gauge from her but he couldn't figure out what she was after and the only thing he could do was ask, and she didn't have to answer him. Falchion just held her hand for what seemed like eternity.
"Just one more, make it a simple one. What's the worst that could happen?" Falchion tried to egg her on as best as possible.
"No Falchion, I don't want you to have to think about any more bad. Besides, I have to go soon and get the stuff from Zecora for Doctor Whooves. Last thing I need is to lose my job." Fluttershy leaned up against Falchion as she spoke, not particularily wanting to leave.
"You'd never lose it, you're too good with animals to lose it. Okay, come on Fluttershy..." Falchion stood up offering her a hand back to her feet which she gratiously took.
"Ask me one more question, the third of the game and I will take you, hand-in-hand to Zecora's myself."
Falchion said with a smirk.
"You know Zecora?" Fluttershy asked meekly, but with a clever smile on her face.
"Okay that doesn't count, but yes, I do." Falchion looked down at her. So she was clever too, maybe she really was worth weeks of dreaming about.
"Okay fine..." Her voice quieted down and sounded out with a spot of a defeat. "... if you don't hold it against your father, why haven't you gone back?" She asked him now leaning against him and walking towards the deeper brush with him.
Falchion raised her chin and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
"6 o'clock then." He whispered to her, before leading her off amongst the trees.
The next morning Rainbow Dash sat in a booth at Sugarcube Corner enjoying a donut and a nice cup of coffee Ms. Cake had made for her while looking at her favorite paper. Sure, the Ponyville News was cool and all but they didn't get the juicy stuff like these guys. Across from her in the booth sat Pinkie Pie who was eying a box of donut holes with hungry intent. Just as she was reaching out to grab one, Rainbow slid everything out of the way and slammed the paper down on the table causing Pinkie to momentarily recoil before curiously leaning over the paper and reading it with interest.
"That's rediculous! They have pictures of Fluttershy and that- That psychopath!" Rainbow looked across the table at Pinkie who was now no longer looking at the paper but happily munching away.
Dash reached across the table and grabbed Pinkie's head in her hands steadying it so she was looking her right in the eye. Even though Pinkie was still happily chewing.
"Ahunno Dass, 'e did bwing her to the..." Pinkie took a second to swallow. "... Hospital, remember?"
"Pfft, yeah right. He's probably the one to attack her, did you see the pictures from a couple weeks ago? He's a menace and she shouldn't be getting close to him." Dash said matter of factly.
"Okie-dokie Dashie, if you say so. How exactly are you going to stop him though, you don't even know what he looks like." Pinkie Pie said pointedly.
"Yeah, well. I'll figure it out. You'll tell me if you learn anything, right Pinkie?" Dash asked.
Pinkie Pie didn't much like lying, but this time there was a friendship on the line.
"Sure will Dashie!" She said exuberantly shoving another couple donut holes into her mouth and reaching across the table so she could take a long swig of Dash's coffee with she promptly made a disgusted face at.
"Thanks Pink, I'm gonna go ask around before I have to go to the school." Dash said before sprinting out the door.
Author's Note: Yay, Falchion can stop being a quiet, unknown irritation. Writing a mysterious character truthfully isn't my strong suit so I'm glad that people can finally learn a little bit about him. So yeah, I made Japan into Nippony (based of the literal Japan to English pronounciation) and of course San Francisco got the lt on the end. I actually hate ponified city names, no lie!
Sorry to the people following on FiMFiction, I wasn't sure I'd have enough to catch up to here before now so I published the story with just a couple chapters. Thanks to the few people tracking me.
Comments of course, still appreciated. Thankful to the few people that dropped me a line after the last chapter. Like I said before, I'm a bit rusty, but I'm hoping to use this story to improve. Again, please drop any tips you have. :)